Search for 'sam' returned 98 results.

Everyone\'s favorite bloodthirsty Spartan is back, and, as usual, he\'s pissed. In this prequel to the other two God of War titles, you\'ll help Kratos save the planet from eternal darkness. God of War: Chains of Olympus delivers the same insane action and impeccable quality of the previous PlayStation 2 editions, and that is an accomplishment for a title with both a brand new developer (the capable Ready at Dawn) and a brand new console. This is the best reason so far to blow the dust off your PSP. Check out our review.

This came out of nowhere. The studio formerly known as Irrational (they changed their two divisions\' names to 2K Australia and 2K Boston) get a big pat on the back for sneaking their demo onto Xbox Live on Sunday. Bioshock, which puts you through the eyes of a crash victim who gets stuck in the underwater dystopia known only as Rapture, just went gold last week. Now, we\'ll get to sample what we\'re betting is going to be a ground-braking experience.

Following the events of the film, Shrek the Third puts you in the shoes of Shrek, Donkey, Puss-in-Boots, and others as they try to find Arthur and get him to be king. Taking cues from, and also satiring, the myths of both Arthur and the fairy tale genre, Shrek the Third places you in the middle of a fairy tale coup d\'etat (ask you parents, kids!) in the land of Far Far Away. Although it features many of the same voice actors from the film (including John Cleese), the game suffers from poor execution and vision, even for a kids game. This is one that we swear you\'ll do good to avoid, even if you\'re a fan.

Hot on the heels of Settlers of Catan, which invaded XBLA last month, Carcassonne, the board game based on the fortified city in France of the same name, comes to Xbox Live Arcade in a very worthy package. While slightly pricy at 800 microsoft points, Carcassonne is an excellent strategy game for up to 4 people locally, or 5 over Xbox Live, although you\'ll find it best with only two or three.

Viva Pinata is one of those games that continues to surface in discussions amongst the GamesFirst staff in a way that is normally reserved for blockbuster titles. Though it certainly is too far outside the realm of \"normal\" to appeal to every gamer, Viva Pinata does an extraordinarily good job of being different and addicting at the same time. Yet its simple gameplay has one issue. Through its use of context sensitive buttons, Viva Pinata managed to take a simple gameplay experience and endow it with the impression that there were too many buttons. Is it possible that what was once a feature that developers bragged about has in some ways managed to simply over-complicate the game?

With its anime influenced style, guns-blazing action, and destroy anything physics, what could go wrong? Bullet Witch is an example of a game that could have benefitted from a few more months in development. Though not without its surprises, Bullet Witch concedes to the same gameplay mechanics we\'ve been comfortable with for years. While it doesn\'t do anything really new with gameplay, it might be worth the rental if you\'re bored with everything else.

Usually giant robot fighting is a great way to spend a weekend, hell, even a week. But sometimes it just makes us want to throw our PSP across the room and scream, \"No, bad PSP!\" Rengoku is somewhere in-between. Want to know what the relevance to the acronym H.E.A.V.E.N is? Or if giant robot action and 4-player wireless will save Rengoku II? Or will our Matt James be able to look at his PSP the same after having gone through not one, but two Rengokus? Is it a metaphoric stairway to H.E.A.V.E.N or is there some literal, Jungian translation? Will Led Zeppelin come and play at my birthday party? Well, to quote the great Wayne Campbell: \"No stairway. DENIED!\"

The advent of services like Xbox Live and the Wii Virtual Console have changed the dynamics of the industry. Suddenly there\'s a marketplace for less mainstream genres that have a hard time competing against the likes of Halo and Zelda. One such genre: Adventure Games. According to 1up.com, Nintendo has heard fans asking for adventure game content and contacted TellTale games about the possibility of bringing Sam and Max to the Wii. A sure thing? Far from it, but it\'s nice to know that you can make a difference if you shout loud enough. Good job, guys and gals.

Ah, remember when games were games and gamers were gamers who loved graphical adventures! Trust us, it happened sometime in the early nineties. Graphical adventures have been gaining steam lately, what with the soon-to-be-gold \"Sam & Max: Episode One\" in October. And since we love retro games so much, we put two and two together and came out with GROG! In this new weekly column, we force Chris to play through one old-school game and write about it. He\'s currently recovering now that he\'s seen the ghost pirate LeChuck in \"The Secret of Monkey Island.\"

Episodes, really. But not the TV kind. Telltale Games is bringing Sam & Max to episodic PC games over the course of 6 months. Based on the comic book characters by Steve Purcell, the dynamic detective duo are to return to the PC 13 years since their videogame debut with \"Sam and Max: Hit the Road.\" Sam & Max: Season One is going to hit PCs this October. We got to talk to Dan Connors, CEO of Telltale Games, about this upcoming release and see the game in action. Here\'s what we have to report.

20th Century Fox has announced that they\'ll be releasing a number of Blu-ray movies just before the PS3 launch in November, including at least one dual-layer Blu-ray that clocks in at 50 gigabytes. According to their press release, Fox will be selling Behind Enemy Lines, Fantastic Four, Kingdom of Heaven (Director\'s Cut), Kiss of the Dragon, The Omen, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Speed, and The Transporter for $40 each. This means that buying each title on Blu-ray will cost you nearly three times what it does to buy the same title on DVD. Is it worth it to you?

Director Adam Slutsky, Co-producer Sean Jensen, and company are in the business of making us laugh, and feel a little nostalgic for 1994. Their film \"Zombies Ate My Neighbors,\" based on the Konami video game of the same name is a throwback to schlocky horror films and video game horror. The first part of three 3-minute shorts is up on TheProject.TV and we have to say we\'re impressed. The film seems to have everything, even a twenty-something guy playing \"grandma\" in a white wig? Say no more.

E3 has fundamentally ceased to exist. You\'ve probably heard. Last year, E3 was attended by over 70,000 people. Next year, the ESA estimates attendance will fall somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000, making it smaller PAX. The L.A. Convention Center is a thing of the past, given up in favor of hotels throughout the L.A. area. What does it mean to have the industry\'s largest event disappear with no warning at all, nearly overnight? Half the industry is breathing a sigh of relief, and the other half has already opened a questing eye looking for the next event to take its place. The opportunity for random discovery has diminished, but the chance to get actual, useful information out of the event has increased immensely. We can only wonder at the consequences. GamesFirst and E3 were started at nearly the same time, within a year of each other, and it\'s like seeing a brother get married or something. They\'re still there, but you don\'t get to hang out with them as much anymore.

SteelSeries has a line of high-end peripherals that includes the \"5L Steel\" mousepad, an extra large 15x11 inch mousepad designed to give you the edge in PC gaming. Despite being durable and perfectly suited for what it\'s designed to do, the SteelPad suffers from the same symptom that afflicts most high-end specialized gaming gear: It\'s a top notch mousepad, but costs twice what it should.

Web traffic drops during the summer as gaming news runs dry and warm weather draws people away from their monitors. Fourth of July often represents the summer\'s ultimate low in traffic, and pretty much everyone in the gaming industry takes the day off. If you haven\'t had a chance to spend some time outside in the beautiful weather, now is the perfect day to step outside into the cooling evening, put away the games for a moment, and take in a part of life that doesn\'t run on electricity. Tomorrow we can return to the flash of modern life, but tonight and maybe tomorrow we here at GamesFirst are going to stretch out, light some fireworks, and enjoy a good birthday. We hope you consider doing the same. Happy Fourth of July, everyone.